Can fear cure cancer?

In 1962, East German researchers conducted a bizarre medical experiment in an attempt to find out if fear could cure cancer

Read the full article on Weird Universe here

People Born Blind Are Mysteriously Protected From Schizophrenia

The possible explanations could help us better understand the condition.

Read the full article on Vice here

Scientists discover new pain-sensing organ

Octopus-like Schwann cells that engulf nerves in skin can sense pain, experiments show

Read the full article on The Guardian here

What's the Oldest Disease?

Some things never change. Dying terribly from bone cancer, for instance: that’s something humans have been doing from about the beginning of our time. Has it always been like this, or was there some blissful period, in our species’ salad days, in which no one perished from bone cancer? Which sickness has burdened us—or our ancestors, or any lifeform—the longest? To find out, for this week’s Giz Asks we reached out to a number of anthropologists, who provided their takes on the oldest disease.

Read the full article on Gizmodo here

GRAVE ROBBERS AND DISSECTION LABS: THE NIGHTMARES OF 19TH CENTURY AMERICA.

We have all identified with “things that go bump in the night.” Generations of Americans have shared similar nightmares, mostly about fictional creatures, ghouls and monsters. Our nightmares are especially chilling when the ghouls show up in graveyards. Much of our pop culture has centered around the dark side of myths or legends: the vampires, ghosts, and the headless horsemen. The body snatchers, those shadowy figures lurking about in graveyards at night, have become entwined with these myths and legends. In the 19th century a generation of Americans were nervous, even anxious, when the topic of discussion was about grave robbing, some even saying they were “afraid to die,” because of what might happen to them afterwards. The creatures of the night, these body snatchers, were not mythical creatures. They were the subject of many nightmares and became The Boogeyman to an entire nation – – and they were real.

Read the full article on Our Great American Heritage here